if we can but last
by marianne in chains
Summary: The intermingling lives and loves of Naoko and Ritsuko Akagi and Yui and Gendo Ikari. They have crossed more lines than you know. [Yuri. Lime.] [Better than summary makes it seem. xD]


**Fandom:** Evangelion**  
Title: **if we can but last**  
Pairing/Characters: **Naoko, Yui, Gendo, Ritsuko. Shake well, with a heavy dose of yuri and adultery. **  
Rating: **R**  
Disclaimer: **Eva isn't mine.

Warning: Yuri, smut, language, violence, CRACK (yay!)

a/n: The scene changes are using the same line, kind of. The 3rd scene for instance, ends with an unfinished line. The first line of scene 4 finishes that line. However, the what you read in scen 3 is not the beginning of the sentence in scene 4. If you don't get it, it won't hinder you that much. You should be able to figure it out.

.:x:.

"Nnn…OH GOD!" Her fingers stroked and caressed, eliciting moans of pleasure from the woman beneath her. Naoko smiled ferally, leaving a trail of kisses down Yui's stomach. They should probably stop, she reflected. Someone, maybe even Gendo, would be there soon. Sometimes she wanted to be found, wanted Gendo to see them. The wandering digits traveled lower, fingertips trailing over heated thighs, reaching the warm wetness between Yui's legs. Left hand rested about the crest, right hands traveled inwards, eliciting more and more fervent, passionate moans from the woman under Naoko's ministrations.

"Naoko…nnn…AH!" Yui, in the throes of an orgasm, writhed beneath her and Nakao felt inordinately pleased with herself. Gendo was so smug all the time; how would he like to see this? She couldn't help chuckle inside as Yui's breathing started to regulate, and her hands wound around Naoko's neck, pulling her head to down to kiss her fiercely.

"We," she panted, "need to get out of here." Yui's short brown hair was slicked with sweat, lying across her face in bunches. Aquamarine eyes were still clouded with ecstasy and her body ached when she tried move, Naoko having freed her. The older woman's calculating eyes, were they brown or green or violet – Yui could never tell in this light, slid to the door. She gestured for Yui to head for the showers first; they couldn't be seen leaving together.

Yui nodded, changing with a rapidity that could only come from practice. Her clothes were rumpled and sweaty, but a fairly unharmed lab coat would be able to disguise that until she was able to change. Naoko watched her retreating back, her eyes softening briefly. Yui really was beautiful; she could understand why Gendo loved her so much. Naoko wasn't much of a romantic, as her late husband and Ritsuko, her daughter, could attest to. Birthdays had been no-nonsense affairs, and Christmas did not exist in the Akagi household. Valentine's Day was considered a waste of time and money, so Ritsuko had to sneak around her mother in order to buy presents.

Needless to say, Naoko Akagi was not the kind of woman who fell in love. Especially not with the wife of her superior. She fell in lust, in the desire to have and to use and to hurt. But she did not love people, she did not love things. It was not in her nature. As a scientist she wanted to open people and find their limits, press and press until they hit the breaking point. She couldn't do that to Yui. Every time she tried something stopped her, a little voice that warned her that if she did, something horrible would happen.

Maybe it was because Yui was too much like her. They were both brilliant scientists working for Gehirn, though Naoko suspected that Yui knew far more than she was letting on. She didn't mind though, she figured that if she waited long enough everything would come to light. Project E would make sense and she would know what the Magi were to be used for. The Magi were her pet project, the thing that she literally put all of herself into. Her as a scientist and a mother were easy, she had never changed her philosophies there. But to put her as a woman into the Magi, that was difficult. Did she include that irrational part of her that had fallen in love with Yui? Or was that part of her not important? Love was not needed in a machine, even a bio-computer. She would take that secret to the grave, telling no one. Not even Yui. Yui didn't need to know how Naoko felt; she was already married, after all.

Naoko hated Yui for that. She hated her for being married to a man she loved and for being so much younger, so much more brilliant and beautiful. Of course, Naoko had aged very well, but she did not have Yui's vitality, her marble-smooth body, hair free of grey, eyes that could still see in any light. Naoko tried not to think about it, but when she did she couldn't help feeling like some perverted…

.:x:.

"Old hag!"

"What did you call me?"

"Old hag!"

"That's not a very nice thing to call someone."

"That's what Father calls you. 'The old hag is useless!' 'The old hag is annoying!"

Naoko didn't know what snapped when she heard that. Yes, she hated being called an old woman, and she hated that Gendo thought of her as such. She had worked hard to be beautiful, harder still after Yui's mysterious disappearance. With the one who had almost loved her (never say it out loud-mention it and it ceases to be) gone, she had sought the attention of her husband. If Yui had loved Gendo, maybe there was something in him that Naoko had missed. He was her replacement, and she was his.

So that was why it hurt so much. Because this little girl was his new Yui. She didn't look anything like the blue-eyed, brunette scientist, of course, but her voice was the same. That high, clear, damnably pure voice that Naoko heard when she wasn't listening carefully. It was Yui standing before her, smiling and kind-eyed as she shattered Naoko's heart with two words. So she stopped it. She could not, would not, allow this slipshod mockery of Yui to live, this doll of Gendo's that he could raise instead of the child she gave him.

Her hands were releasing the limp neck before she even knew what she had done, truthfully. But it had not ended her illusion one bit; Yui was still there, dead by her hand. She tried not to break, to reconnect the data ports and to reassemble herself, but the human heart doesn't work like a computer, Naoko realized, as she plummeted off the railing. At least she would die where Yui had. Perhaps, if there was an afterlife. (don't finish the treacherous thought) But no, it did not matter, she wasn't –

.:x:.

"…in love. Is that clear, Doctor Akagi?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"On that same note, not a word about this…affair…shall be mentioned to anyone.

"Of course."

"I heard that your daughter recently joined NERV." (1)

"Yes, sir."

"I certainly hope you know that 'anyone' includes your daughter."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, come here, Naoko."

"With pleasure."

Gendo smirked, knowing that Ritsuko, like Naoko, would be under this thumb once the old hag was out of the way. After all, like mother…

.:x:.

…like daughter.' Is all Yui can think of when she first meets the young Ritsuko Akagi (2). She smiles prettily, blue eyes crinkling at the edges and Yui wonders of Naoko ever used to smile like that. She certainly doesn't now, much to Yui's disappointment. The blonde head bobs in a hurried bow, and Yui hides her grin at the brunette roots peeking out.

Ritsuko stops and stares at Yui intently, brows knitting. Yui freezes in place; that look is never a good one on an Akagi's face. But when Ritsuko grins, she remembers to breath. "You…you're Ikari Yui-san, right?"

"Yes, weren't you going somewhere? Don't let me hold you up."

"It's ok, Yui-san." She gives the older woman that same long, calculating stare and leans in. Yui tries to remember how to breathe and oh my god she really is Naoko's daughter. Then their lips meet and there aren't anymore words. "It's just…you really are beautiful." Ritsuko turns and continues towards her initial destination.

Yui watches her leave with aquamarine eyes and tries to figure out what just happened. "beautiful, huh?" One pale finger traces over her lips and she smiles. Perhaps…like daughter…

.:x:.

"…like Mother. You're just going to use me and toss me out, aren't you?" Her voice is rough around the edges from smoking and sex and whatever it is that he suspects she's been drinking.

"I did no such thing to Naoko."

"Then why did she kill herself?"

"Contrary to what you may believe, your mother was not that emotionally fragile."

"Are you sure?" She snaps and lashes out like a wounded animal and he grins, pinning her down to the bed. The pain catches in her throat as he kisses her with bruising intensity.

"It was simply the shock of the horrid act that she committed."

"That you drove her to!" She wrenches her wrists from his grasp and sits bolt upright. "You bastard! It's your fault! It's all your fault!" He doesn't answer but kisses her again and this time she responds because maybe it isn't worth caring about anymore.

"You kiss like your mother.

"So I've been told."

Gendo chooses not to question her further, and instead stares into the space above her head for a second.

"And you kiss like her, too"

Ritsuko's eyes widen. 'You mean Yui-san,…"

.:x:.

"…your wife. Gendo, you have to trust me. We need to slow this down."

"Don't _you _trust _me, _Yui?"

"I do, Gendo, I do. I love you. But we have to think about what we're doing."

"Yui…"

"Gendo, it's the _human soul_ we're talking about. Just because we can't activate a field to protect ourselves doesn't mean it isn't a sin to harm the soul!" (3)

Gendo didn't say anything, just wrapped and arm around her waist and kissed her tenderly- that same tactic he would inevitably use on the Akagi women, his brittle replacements.

"But we can't stop, can we?" She said as he pulled away, her voice soft and low and not really there in a way the stirred his heart.

"No, Yui, we can't." She shook his head, but his eyes brightened. She had agreed with him. "We have gone too far. Things will change, best that they change under our guidance. The world…"

.:x:.

"…is different now." Her head hangs limply, she looks like the dead lifeless Rei-doll he found at the site of her mother's suicide. "I'm not happy anymore. Not even when you make love to me." He stands there, uncaring and her voice catches on the memory of those who, like her, have loved him. "But go ahead and do whatever you want to my body. It's never stopped you before!"

He stands there, carefully dispassionate, and waits for the wracking sobs to subside. "Why did you do it? Why did you destroy the dummy plug system?"

She laughs now, harsh and bitter like her tears but less pure, less innocent, more cruel and cynical and worldly than he though even she could be. "It wasn't the dummy plug system I destroyed, it was Rei!" Her eyes widen and he can't look at them, turning away in disgust, and so she savours her small victory before he closes the door with a sharp click and she is alone again.

The darkness and the glowing red NERV logo (it looks oh so blood-red like Naoko's body and Rei's eyes and that boy's eyes and it's red red red red until the end of the world amen.) press in upon her until she feels like she's going to burst and the sobs come again. "What do I do? Oh, god what I am going to do? Mother, help me, please. Mother…okaa-san…kaa-san…Yui-san…what do I do…san….how do I go on…please…what do I do?"

.:x:.

The ancients taught us that if we can but last, we shall prevail.

-fin-

1: Couldn't remember if it was NERV or Gehirn at this time. I fail xD

2: for the sake of this fic, I'm sayinging that Ritsuko joined when Yui was still alive. That may be AU, it may not. I can't recall.

3: Also pretending that Yui knows/understands the concept of the AT Field, which she may well have, 'cause she's Yui and she's cool like that.


End file.
